with an East African subregional organization and Western powers to mediate peace in South Sudan. Initially, China refrained from military involvement, preferring to contribute medical workers and engineers. It provided a 315-member engineering unit to the peacekeeping mission in Darfur, but no troops. However, as Beijing’s global stature and interests grew, so too did its military engagement. In 2013, Beijing supplied some 400 engineers, medical personnel, police, and combat troops to the UN peacekeeping mission in Mali, marking the first time Chinese combat forces had joined a UN operation. Similarly, in 2015, Beijing assigned 350 engineers, medical personnel, and other noncombatants to the UN peacekeeping mission in South Sudan. However, it also contributed an infantry battalion composed of 700 armed peacekeepers—the first Chinese infantry battalion ever deployed in a UN peacekeeping mission. Chinese military presence was also notable in UN peacekeeping missions in Burundi (2004–6) and the Central African Republic (2014–).
The trend toward heightened Chinese political and military engagement in Africa culminated in a 2016 agreement that permitted China to construct a military base in Djibouti—its first permanent military facility overseas. Strategically located on the Gulf of Aden near the mouth of the Red Sea, the base will allow Beijing to resupply Chinese vessels involved in UN antipiracy operations and to protect Chinese nationals living in the region. It will also enable China to monitor commercial traffic along its evolving 21st Century Maritime Silk Road, which will link maritime countries from Oceania to the Mediterranean in a vast production and trading network.17 It will allow China to safeguard its supply of oil, half of which originates in the Middle East and transits through the Red Sea and Djibouti’s Bab al-Mandeb Strait to the Gulf of Aden. Most of China’s exports to Europe follow the same route. Because China’s growing economic interests in Africa have led to greater concern about the continent’s political stability, the projection of Chinese military power in Africa is likely to intensify in the future. Such developments will have significant implications in Africa. However, they are a topic for another book.
The Book’s Architecture and Case Studies
This book explores foreign political and military intervention in Africa after the Cold War through the lens of case studies from East, Central, West, and North Africa. Southern Africa is not a primary focus. Although that subregion was the site of significant foreign intervention during the Cold War, it was largely exempt from external political and military interference during the first two and a half decades that followed.18 However, South Africa, the subregion’s leading power, wielded continental and global influence and played an important role in international peace initiatives on the continent. Its efforts are discussed in case studies focusing on the other subregions.
Chapters 1 through 3 establish the book’s framework. This first chapter introduces the book’s purpose, historical and chronological context, and central propositions, and explains the book’s scope and limitations. Chapter 2 begins with a portrait of Africa at the end of the Cold War, when political and economic crises attracted a new wave of outside engagement. It develops the two paradigms that were used to justify foreign intervention after the Cold War—response to instability and the war on terror—and examines common Western misconceptions about Islam and its history, which have influenced the trajectory of the war on terror. Chapter 3 introduces the key international actors that intervened in Africa after the Cold War and explores their motivations and rationales for intervention.
At the heart of the book, chapters 4–11 present a series of subregional case studies, illustrating the two paradigms that were used to justify foreign intervention. Some cases exemplify foreign intervention as a response to instability and its corollary, responsibility to protect. Others typify external action as a component of the war on terror, a justification that was especially prevalent after the September 2001 attacks on the United States. Some cases are characterized by a single paradigm, while others bridge the two. Together the case studies offer evidence that supports the book’s four central propositions. Although the political, economic, and social components of each conflict are described, the case studies emphasize the impact of foreign intervention rather than the internal dynamics of the struggles. They offer overviews of each conflict and do not attempt to evaluate the relative importance of internal and external factors. For readers interested in other aspects of the conflicts, Suggested Reading sections are appended to each chapter.
Chapters 12 and 13 look more closely at the role of the United States. Chapter 12 investigates US involvement in Africa after the Cold War, from the Clinton through Obama administrations. Concerns about political and economic instability and international terrorism shaped US policies and had a significant impact on outcomes in Africa. Chapter 13 offers a window on US Africa policy during the first year of the Trump administration, exploring continuities and discontinuities with previous administrations. The Conclusion summarizes the pitfalls of foreign political and military intervention in Africa during the first quarter century after the Cold War and suggests some requirements for the establishment of lasting peace.
The sections below briefly summarize the case studies featured in chapters 4–11, grouped by subregion, and the elements of US Africa policy discussed in chapters 12–13, noting how they illustrate the paradigms used to justify foreign intervention after the Cold War.
East Africa: Somalia, Sudan, and South Sudan
Chapter 4 focuses on foreign intervention in Somalia from 1991 through 2017. After the central state collapsed in 1991, warlords and Islamists vied for control. The UN, the United States, the AU, and neighboring countries interceded, initially motivated by the response to instability and the responsibility to protect, but increasingly galvanized by the war on terror as a jihadist insurgency emerged in response to outside intervention. The response to instability/responsibility to protect paradigm is applicable to Somalia for the entire period. The war on terror paradigm is relevant to the period before September 2001, but it took on greater urgency in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks.
Chapter 5 examines foreign intervention in Sudan (1991–2017) and South Sudan (2011–17). In Sudan, civil war, local insurgencies, ethnic cleansing, and terrorist networks generated enormous instability inside the country and across its borders. Neighboring states supported rival factions in the north-south civil war (1983–2005), while the UN, the United States, European countries, and African subregional organizations mediated problematic peace accords that ended the war but laid the groundwork for future conflicts. The AU and the UN staged inventions to prevent ethnic cleansing in the Darfur region of western Sudan from 2003, but they failed to sustain the operations until peace was restored. The response to instability/responsibility to protect paradigm is applicable to Sudan for the entire period. The war on terror paradigm is relevant to much of the 1990s; however, by the end of the decade Khartoum had begun to collaborate in the US-led war on terror in the hope that its cooperation would lead to the lifting of sanctions.
Central Africa: Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo
Chapter 6 investigates foreign involvement in Rwanda before and during the 1994 genocide, and chapter
